Latest / Normally / Normally Podcast: Trade Deals, 2025 Politics & FAFO Parenting

Transcript

Normally Podcast: Trade Deals, 2025 Politics & FAFO Parenting · Normally

0:02
Speaker 1: Hey guys, we are back on the normally. So when
0:04
Speaker 1: normalis it takes for when the news gets weird. Carol
0:08
Speaker 1: is enjoying her vacation and for all of her various troops,
0:12
Speaker 1: and we have with us Kelly Maher from the beautiful
0:15
Speaker 1: state of Colorado, joining us once again to make sense
0:19
Speaker 1: of some of the news.
0:21
Speaker 2: How's it going, kel making sense ish of some of
0:25
Speaker 2: the news?
0:25
Speaker 1: Ish. We do our best. We do what we try
0:28
Speaker 1: to provide. I have just come from a seven hour
0:33
Speaker 1: odyssey of dropping kids at camp and then driving back
0:37
Speaker 1: with other kids from said camp. So I dropped two
0:41
Speaker 1: bigs at camp, two littles came with me. Two littles
0:45
Speaker 1: are now in bed so that I can do my work.
0:47
Speaker 1: So we did it.
0:50
Speaker 2: You did it. It sounds my lasting.
0:52
Speaker 1: And I guess my older kids are enjoying themselves. I
0:54
Speaker 1: don't know. I won't hear from them. They said to me,
0:58
Speaker 1: or one of them said to me as I left, bye, mom, love,
1:02
Speaker 1: you have fun doing our chores while we're gone. And
1:04
Speaker 1: I was like, this is what I paid good money for.
1:06
Speaker 1: This is what I paid.
1:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, little I like a little bit of SaaS. I
1:10
Speaker 2: think that's good.
1:12
Speaker 1: It's good This is what I get for making them
1:13
Speaker 1: independent and helpful. Yeah, I have to pay the price
1:16
Speaker 1: when they're gone. Okay, shall we talk about what's going
1:20
Speaker 1: on in the news. Okay, we've got yet another trade
1:24
Speaker 1: deal asident. Donald Trump announced Sunday that the US reached
1:28
Speaker 1: a trade deal with the European Union following pivotal discussions
1:31
Speaker 1: with European Commission President Ursula vander Lehren. How is that
1:36
Speaker 1: her name? Days before the August tariff deadline, Trump said
1:41
Speaker 1: the deal imposed of fifteen percent tariff on most European
1:44
Speaker 1: goods to the US, including cars, some products, including aircrafts
1:47
Speaker 1: and their components. Some chemicals and pharmaceuticals will not be
1:50
Speaker 1: subject to tariffs, vonder Lean said in a briefing after
1:53
Speaker 1: the agreement was announced. She also said that the new
1:56
Speaker 1: fifteen percent tariff rate would not be added to any
1:58
Speaker 1: tariffs already an effect this is on you know, this
2:02
Speaker 1: is on the heels of the Japan deal, so substance
2:06
Speaker 1: of the deals aside. It does appear that he's making
2:10
Speaker 1: the deals right. And my position on the on the
2:15
Speaker 1: terroriffs is that I don't love it. You know, I'm
2:17
Speaker 1: not a huge fan of the way this is happening,
2:19
Speaker 1: because I think it's unwise to put one hundred and
2:22
Speaker 1: sixty five trade deals on one's plate when one is
2:24
Speaker 1: doing many other things. However, Donald Trump really likes tariffs
2:28
Speaker 1: and he really likes deal making, so like he's happy,
2:30
Speaker 1: and he promised this, so here we are, but progress
2:37
Speaker 1: better than not making deals. So I'm okay with that part.
2:42
Speaker 2: I mean, you and I tend to both be fairly
2:46
Speaker 2: free marketing type of people, right, and therefore our tariff
2:52
Speaker 2: skeptical generally, I mean policy. However, he also Trump also
2:59
Speaker 2: mentioned that he's the it's likely there's going to be
3:01
Speaker 2: a fifteen to twenty percent world wide tariff just kind
3:05
Speaker 2: of across the board. And if that's the baseline, that
3:09
Speaker 2: everybody just basically charges everybody else, it all. I'm not
3:14
Speaker 2: saying that it all comes out in the wash, but
3:17
Speaker 2: it then does become just the and the ability for
3:22
Speaker 2: businesses to anticipate the cost of doing business right, and
3:27
Speaker 2: being able to anticipate the cost of doing business is
3:30
Speaker 2: one of the core and most important underpinnings of capitalism
3:36
Speaker 2: that we both love.
3:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, pretty pretty important stuff. Some have noted that the
3:42
Speaker 1: White House's fact sheet differs from the story that the
3:45
Speaker 1: European Union is telling, So we'll see how that comes
3:50
Speaker 1: out in the wash. I mean such as such as
3:53
Speaker 1: the like danger of doing a lot of deals quite quickly.
4:00
Speaker 1: Normally these things take a lot of time and many
4:03
Speaker 1: people to be involved in them, And I would I
4:06
Speaker 1: don't think that's a perfect system. I think it probably
4:08
Speaker 1: took too long to make free trade deals in the past,
4:11
Speaker 1: and as always with Donald Trump, the pendulum just woo swings.
4:16
Speaker 1: But I would say that I was worried about what
4:21
Speaker 1: the first six months of his presidency would look like
4:24
Speaker 1: economically because of the announcement of Liberation Day and what
4:28
Speaker 1: that would mean for international trade. That does not mean
4:31
Speaker 1: there haven't been costs for small businesses, for people who
4:34
Speaker 1: really have had hurdles thrown up in their way, people
4:36
Speaker 1: who have had to change business plans on a dime,
4:39
Speaker 1: even in large corporations because of these ever changing plans.
4:45
Speaker 1: But as a larger picture, the effect has not been
4:50
Speaker 1: what I thought it might be on the economy in
4:52
Speaker 1: any sort of in a large negative way.
4:55
Speaker 2: Right.
4:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know I'm damning with faint praise, but like
4:58
Speaker 1: I'm a skeptic, so that's where I out right.
5:01
Speaker 2: Right I it's sometimes less bad than you thought it
5:06
Speaker 2: was possibly going to be. It's just kind of it's
5:09
Speaker 2: the thing that we've talked about over and over again.
5:12
Speaker 2: It's like, maybe it's all just kind of fine. Right,
5:15
Speaker 2: It's not always the best, but it's not this doom
5:19
Speaker 2: and gloom that we keep being sold is coming down
5:23
Speaker 2: the well, and.
5:24
Speaker 1: That a lot of us, perhaps even all the countries
5:26
Speaker 1: who are dealing with Trump, are doing the same thing
5:30
Speaker 1: we're doing, which is like, maybe it'll all come out
5:32
Speaker 1: in the wash. Like that's sort of that's sort of
5:36
Speaker 1: where everyone is in the way that they're dealing with this.
5:41
Speaker 1: So he's got that going for him. I do think,
5:45
Speaker 1: you know, gas prices look promising for him. Inflation has
5:49
Speaker 1: ticked down, even though of course cost of living still
5:52
Speaker 1: feels very tough on people. Egg prices way down because
5:57
Speaker 1: that was a spec problem that was called caused by
6:01
Speaker 1: a specific thing that has to some extent been relieved.
6:06
Speaker 1: And here we are so.
6:11
Speaker 2: Ands as moms of collectively six children, two of us.
6:17
Speaker 2: I like, the access to cheap protein is very important
6:22
Speaker 2: to people, and eggs is a huge way to do that.
6:24
Speaker 1: My five year old eggs were killing me.
6:26
Speaker 3: Man.
6:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I know you and I both do pretty
6:30
Speaker 2: high protein, and we both consume a lot of eggs,
6:33
Speaker 2: as do all of our children. And I mean my
6:36
Speaker 2: five year old eats between six and eight eggs every day.
6:41
Speaker 2: She has very I have very children all and I
6:45
Speaker 2: have gigantic children, and when they are teenagers, I will be.
6:50
Speaker 1: You're gonna be broke. I'm gonna have to give you
6:52
Speaker 1: a GoFundMe so you. Hewittt once asked me how many
6:57
Speaker 1: eggs my family eats per week, and I was like,
7:00
Speaker 1: I couldn't even tell you because my husband orders so
7:04
Speaker 1: many of them from Costco that there's just an ever
7:07
Speaker 1: supplied stack of them in there and like large industrial
7:14
Speaker 1: straight from the farm cartons that are like expanded, and
7:19
Speaker 1: so I couldn't tell you. I can't keep count point
7:22
Speaker 1: being cheaper egs better for both of us. And we
7:25
Speaker 1: are not just political junkies, but mom voters who people
7:29
Speaker 1: should be interested in reaching. It's true.
7:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, we don't buy the cartons. We buy the boxes.
7:34
Speaker 1: Right, it's a palate, it's a talent X.
7:39
Speaker 2: It's true. One thing I talked to you about earlier today,
7:43
Speaker 2: Mary Catherine, was an interesting article that came across my
7:48
Speaker 2: Twitter and my texts today was about the housing market. Yeah,
7:54
Speaker 2: and that's actually a different economic indicator that I'm paying
7:57
Speaker 2: attention to right now.
7:59
Speaker 1: But the some of.
8:00
Speaker 2: These very large home homebuilders are hitting new and high
8:07
Speaker 2: levels of having to incentivize people getting into new homes.
8:11
Speaker 2: And you know me, I'm an economic nerd, right, And
8:15
Speaker 2: so I was reading some of these indices, some of
8:20
Speaker 2: these indicators that are coming out, and we're seeing new
8:26
Speaker 2: inventory on the market at levels that we haven't seen
8:31
Speaker 2: since two thousand and nine. And the last six times
8:35
Speaker 2: that we have seen levels this high of new homes
8:40
Speaker 2: that people aren't moving in one. Yeah, that are just
8:44
Speaker 2: sitting on the shelf, if you will, but they're sitting
8:46
Speaker 2: on their lots of land without families moving into them.
8:51
Speaker 2: Five out of the last six times that we have
8:54
Speaker 2: hit these levels, it has then been followed with a recession.
8:59
Speaker 1: Yeah. So a good canary in the coal mine perhaps
9:03
Speaker 1: for people to be paying attention to. And this is
9:05
Speaker 1: something that I think is important for particularly for political
9:10
Speaker 1: people who work on political campaigns, people who are into
9:13
Speaker 1: politics who have partisan designs on who they would like
9:17
Speaker 1: to win. You do want to be looking out for
9:21
Speaker 1: things to be worried about. Right, you don't just go
9:25
Speaker 1: like everything's peachy keen. You do need to watch out
9:29
Speaker 1: for what the things are that could be the arguments
9:31
Speaker 1: you need to be making a year from now, And
9:34
Speaker 1: one of those arguments may be on a broader sort
9:37
Speaker 1: of optimism about people investing in new properties, an issue
9:43
Speaker 1: with interest rates. I think our family is a great
9:46
Speaker 1: example of a family that if interest rates were lower,
9:49
Speaker 1: we would probably look at upgrading to a larger house
9:52
Speaker 1: because we are stacked like an aircraft carrier in here.
9:55
Speaker 1: But we are just like, let the kids all be
9:59
Speaker 1: in one, it's the main let them destroy the nursery together,
10:04
Speaker 1: and that's good and healthy to something stent for building
10:07
Speaker 1: it is, but for the economy, I'm sure like we're
10:10
Speaker 1: the kind of family that people would we'd be the
10:13
Speaker 1: perfect case that would be like, oh yeah, we'll upgrade
10:16
Speaker 1: at this point, but we have chosen not to do
10:18
Speaker 1: that at these rate levels. So I think that's something
10:21
Speaker 1: that will be part of the landscape when it comes
10:24
Speaker 1: to twenty twenty six. Okay, we're going to talk about
10:26
Speaker 1: a little bit more about Trump's fortunes, what that means
10:29
Speaker 1: for twenty twenty six. Some other warning signs when we
10:32
Speaker 1: are back on normal. All right, we are back on normally,
10:40
Speaker 1: and I want to play. It's become a little bit
10:42
Speaker 1: of a tradition on normally to play Harry Anton, who
10:45
Speaker 1: is the data guy over at CNN, and he's always
10:50
Speaker 1: I like Harry Anton. I think he's smart. And one
10:53
Speaker 1: thing I like about him is that he understands what's
10:55
Speaker 1: newsworthy and what's newsworthy our results that the the audience
11:00
Speaker 1: is not expecting but are nonetheless based in data. Okay.
11:06
Speaker 1: That can be jarring for the audience, and it can
11:09
Speaker 1: also be jarring for the people hosting the show at CNN,
11:13
Speaker 1: where he's constantly giving them Trump numbers that make them go,
11:18
Speaker 1: surely that can't be right, Harry, And he's like, it is,
11:21
Speaker 1: and stop calling me Shirley. He's like every time, he's like,
11:26
Speaker 1: well so, and you and I talked about this whole time.
11:29
Speaker 1: Trump is a cat falling off a counter like somehow
11:34
Speaker 1: things come together. He has a sort of savant nature
11:37
Speaker 1: of finding the right place to be, and in this case,
11:43
Speaker 1: this is foreign policy, and I think he's earned this one.
11:45
Speaker 1: But it is funny to watch Harry Inton explain it
11:49
Speaker 1: to CNN So let's do a minute of that clip
11:51
Speaker 1: of Harry talking to CNN viewers.
11:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, this one was a surprising one to me, given
11:57
Speaker 3: everything that's going on in Russia, what happened in Iran,
11:59
Speaker 3: what happened and in Gaza. But the bottom line is
12:01
Speaker 3: Democrats in the American voters' minds cannot hacket. What are
12:05
Speaker 3: we talking about? Party trusted more and foreign policy? Well,
12:08
Speaker 3: the GOP holds an average six point leading the month
12:10
Speaker 3: of July. Look at this. Fox News came out last
12:12
Speaker 3: week plus three points four Republicans on foreign policy over
12:15
Speaker 3: the Democrats. You think that number is not high enough
12:17
Speaker 3: for you? How about the Wall Street Journal GOP plus
12:20
Speaker 3: eight points when they match congressional Democrats up against congressional Republicans.
12:24
Speaker 3: The bottom line is this, despite everything that's going on
12:27
Speaker 3: in the world right now, Republicans are more trusted on
12:30
Speaker 3: Democrats when it comes to foreign policy and the world
12:33
Speaker 3: at large. How has this changed through How does this
12:36
Speaker 3: compare to during the campaign. Yeah, again, this to me
12:39
Speaker 3: was a surprising number. Since Donald Trump said he'd come
12:42
Speaker 3: in and broke all these peace deals. And while he's
12:44
Speaker 3: brokeered some, he hasn't obviously brokered one between Ukraine and Russia,
12:48
Speaker 3: and obviously the situation in Gaza. But take a look
12:50
Speaker 3: here trust More and foreign policy. You go back to
12:52
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four, Trump had a six point advantage over
12:55
Speaker 3: Kamala Harris. Again, look at the average right now. It
12:58
Speaker 3: hasn't moved despite everything that's going on in the world.
13:02
Speaker 3: You see Republicans plus six points here.
13:05
Speaker 1: So I think there's a flaw in his reasoning, which
13:07
Speaker 1: is despite everything that's going on in the world. And
13:09
Speaker 1: I would say perhaps because of everything that's going on
13:13
Speaker 1: in the world, such as bombing the crap out of
13:15
Speaker 1: Iran's nuclear facilities, which most people are like, look at us,
13:19
Speaker 1: that seems good, sensible, successful. I'm impressed his point is
13:27
Speaker 1: well taken. That obviously there was not a peace deal
13:29
Speaker 1: between Ukraine and Russia within twenty four hours, which I
13:32
Speaker 1: believe is what Trump said he could pull off. I'm
13:34
Speaker 1: not sure everyone actually expected that to happen. I think
13:38
Speaker 1: Trump has been some of his rhetoric on Ukraine is
13:43
Speaker 1: like a little squishy sometimes, but I also understand his
13:47
Speaker 1: larger point, which is that you have to justify this
13:49
Speaker 1: spending to the American people. And he's also again cat
13:53
Speaker 1: falling off the counter, come up with this fantastic situation
13:57
Speaker 1: where the European Union is paying for arms from US
14:01
Speaker 1: to go to Ukraine because in spite of the fact
14:07
Speaker 1: or because of it that he said in his first term,
14:11
Speaker 1: NATO's got to do its part. NATO countries have to
14:13
Speaker 1: pay their fair share. And then all of them were like, oh,
14:17
Speaker 1: maybe we should, and then they did, and then they
14:20
Speaker 1: paid for weapons Ukraine. So he's like, he's pulled off
14:23
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff.
14:24
Speaker 2: Yes, And their pathological inability to give him credit for
14:30
Speaker 2: anything ever, just continues to erode people's confidence in mainstream media,
14:37
Speaker 2: like because they see the things happening and then they're
14:42
Speaker 2: told that it's not happening, and then they're like, I
14:46
Speaker 2: don't believe you anymore.
14:48
Speaker 3: Right.
14:49
Speaker 1: I think he also there was a a pole result
14:52
Speaker 1: result out the other day and I cannot remember which pole,
14:55
Speaker 1: but it was, you know, Republicans had a ten point
14:58
Speaker 1: lead on party that I trust to have a strong
15:03
Speaker 1: vision for the country.
15:05
Speaker 3: Right.
15:06
Speaker 1: And I think some of this, some of the foreign
15:08
Speaker 1: policy plus up or you know, credit he's getting is
15:12
Speaker 1: not just from foreign policy, but the idea that he
15:16
Speaker 1: is a leader, because he is inescapably leading right, like
15:21
Speaker 1: you cannot help but understand his vision and hear his
15:25
Speaker 1: vision on all of these issues and see him take
15:28
Speaker 1: action on all these issues. And we had a comatose
15:32
Speaker 1: president for four years, so I think people are like,
15:37
Speaker 1: I feel like, even if he's like I don't totally
15:40
Speaker 1: agree with him all the time, he's doing the thing
15:43
Speaker 1: where you be a president.
15:45
Speaker 2: Yeah. And you know, harkening back to some of the
15:48
Speaker 2: things that we were talking about in the first segment,
15:51
Speaker 2: those of us that occupy a political space in what
15:55
Speaker 2: people in the swamp consider to be flyover country, right,
15:58
Speaker 2: like the biggest states, the rough spelt thing, but the
16:02
Speaker 2: places where races are actually won and lost. The ramifications
16:07
Speaker 2: for this for midterms are just going to be super
16:09
Speaker 2: fascinating because we have a bunch of especially Democrats, who
16:15
Speaker 2: are already trying to prepare themselves for the primary. And
16:19
Speaker 2: the way that they're primary they're preparing themselves for the
16:22
Speaker 2: primary that we're seeing here and in other big square
16:26
Speaker 2: states is who can run to the left as far
16:30
Speaker 2: as possible by talking about how much they hate Trump,
16:33
Speaker 2: and they're going to have a really hard time running
16:35
Speaker 2: back to the middle. Ye as soon as if these
16:40
Speaker 2: numbers continue to hold right.
16:42
Speaker 1: And so it's also like you've tried this playbook so
16:47
Speaker 1: many times? Yes, yes, so many times. Can we talk?
16:52
Speaker 1: Actually this is like a little bit of a tangent,
16:57
Speaker 1: But I want to note that The Atlantic a big
17:01
Speaker 1: profile piece on Jasmine Crockett. Now, speaking of running to
17:06
Speaker 1: the left, folks like you and I would be happy
17:10
Speaker 1: to see the Democrats make Jasmine Crockett their spiritual leader,
17:14
Speaker 1: which they seem to be sort of choosing to do.
17:18
Speaker 1: Jasmin Crockett is a Texas congresswoman, I believe from the
17:23
Speaker 1: Houston area. I looked up her district. Her district is
17:27
Speaker 1: D plus thirty. Okay, D plus thirty. To give those
17:33
Speaker 1: who are not political junkies an idea of what that means.
17:36
Speaker 1: That's just like the proportion of Democrat voters.
17:38
Speaker 2: Versus stefest of safe, like as.
17:42
Speaker 1: Safe as you can get, you can say anything in
17:45
Speaker 1: this district, she'll get reelected. Okay, Just to give you
17:50
Speaker 1: an idea, like the roughly eighteen to twenty five toss
17:53
Speaker 1: up house seats that will determine the House control in
17:58
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six, the average number is like D plus
18:04
Speaker 1: one or even so, right, just like a twenty nine
18:08
Speaker 1: point delta.
18:09
Speaker 2: There, right right.
18:11
Speaker 1: So the point being this kind of congresswoman, although entertaining,
18:16
Speaker 1: I'll give her, is not going to be reaching people
18:20
Speaker 1: in swing districts and is largely probably going to repel
18:25
Speaker 1: them in very serious ways. And I just want to note,
18:28
Speaker 1: my friend Amber Duke read the full profile, which I
18:31
Speaker 1: have not read yet. It's called a Democrat for the
18:33
Speaker 1: Trump era. Jasmine Crockett is testing out the course style
18:37
Speaker 1: of politics that the GOP has embraced. First of all,
18:40
Speaker 1: hilarious that anyone thinks Democrats hadn't been course before. Now
18:44
Speaker 1: you tried to put him in literal jail. But okay, fine, fine,
18:49
Speaker 1: look what you made me do. Here's some facts from
18:53
Speaker 1: the profile, just so you can get an idea of
18:55
Speaker 1: how she's going to be reaching out. Number One, her
18:59
Speaker 1: phone's locks is a headshot of herself. Number Two, she
19:05
Speaker 1: thought she deserved to be the top Democrat on oversight
19:07
Speaker 1: because she has the largest social media following. Number three,
19:12
Speaker 1: she tried to shut down the profile after the reporter
19:15
Speaker 1: called a number of her colleagues in the House. That
19:18
Speaker 1: can't be good. So anyway, if Jasmine Crockett ends up
19:24
Speaker 1: being a very noticeable national spokesperson for the Democratic Party
19:31
Speaker 1: that could spell trouble for them that you know, might
19:35
Speaker 1: not be outweighlable by the twenty twenty six wins, which
19:38
Speaker 1: should blow as history with history as a guide against Republicans.
19:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, mids midterms should not go well for Republicans. And
19:48
Speaker 2: yet I mean, and the other thing is when you
19:52
Speaker 2: start to think about and talk about who they have
19:56
Speaker 2: kind of on their bench for president, it's not They're
20:01
Speaker 2: kind of a headless entity right now.
20:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, this is part of the the somewhat
20:08
Speaker 1: undercovered story of the Obama years is that he took
20:12
Speaker 1: out so many state representatives who what otherwise might have
20:16
Speaker 1: who otherwise might have been promising. So many governorships were
20:20
Speaker 1: won by Republicans during those years and sort of sort
20:23
Speaker 1: of thinned out their ranks. I also think an untold
20:27
Speaker 1: part of the story with Democrats is that operationally running
20:31
Speaker 1: campaigns and what was what's the chick's name who was
20:36
Speaker 1: on Harris's campaign also Stephanie Cutter. Stephanie Cutter spoke about
20:41
Speaker 1: this in a podcast in a post mortem podcast with
20:45
Speaker 1: the pod Bros. I think about how a generation of
20:52
Speaker 1: their operatives had not gotten the practice they needed. Guess why,
20:56
Speaker 1: because Democrats didn't do operations in Yeah, and for most
21:01
Speaker 1: of COVID. So all the young people who running those
21:05
Speaker 1: campaigns should have learned those skills did not learn those
21:07
Speaker 1: skills during those elections. Now it's not to say they
21:11
Speaker 1: can't get some of that back, but thinning your ranks,
21:15
Speaker 1: either with candidates or with operations, folks m not.
21:18
Speaker 2: Great well and classically Democrats a lot of their like
21:24
Speaker 2: field power, a lot of their organizational power has come
21:27
Speaker 2: from unions, right. I as an operative myself, I used
21:34
Speaker 2: to run up against union bosses and they will I
21:39
Speaker 2: mean they are they are hard workers and their good organizer. Yeah,
21:44
Speaker 2: that's that's the nature whole thing.
21:46
Speaker 1: Yeah.
21:48
Speaker 2: Trump has thrown such a wrench into what is their
21:55
Speaker 2: organizational base of power just by being him and his
22:00
Speaker 2: numbers with actual union members that it's just it's kind
22:06
Speaker 2: of fascinating to watch. It's like it's like somebody threw
22:10
Speaker 2: a like firecracker into the middle of an ant farm
22:13
Speaker 2: and you're just watching them like run around in circles
22:15
Speaker 2: and not.
22:16
Speaker 1: Ye oh goodness. Let me give a few quick notes
22:22
Speaker 1: of caution for people who are inclined to want Republicans
22:26
Speaker 1: to win and just like looking forward this year is
22:29
Speaker 1: the Virginia governor's race in November. Now that is always
22:34
Speaker 1: seen as a bit of a tell, as is the
22:36
Speaker 1: New Jersey governor's race. Those happen in this weird off
22:39
Speaker 1: year fashion. Governor youngin Republican in Virginia is very very
22:45
Speaker 1: very popular here like in the sixties approval rating. He
22:50
Speaker 1: cannot run for another term because Virginia has a dumb
22:53
Speaker 1: rule where they can't run for another term. He's just
22:55
Speaker 1: limited to one. So generally Virginia governors will like jump
22:59
Speaker 1: to Senate or you know this is, or become presidential
23:02
Speaker 1: candidates or whatever. So his lieutenant governor wins. Some Earl Sears,
23:08
Speaker 1: who is an African American woman, would be the first
23:10
Speaker 1: African American woman governor if she won. She's a Marine,
23:14
Speaker 1: she's got a very compelling personal story. She is running
23:18
Speaker 1: as a Republican against al Abigail span Burger. Abigail Spanburger, Sorry,
23:25
Speaker 1: this is a little bit of trivia, but you'll know
23:27
Speaker 1: it is from the same district that saw Dave Bratt
23:31
Speaker 1: take out Eric Canter back in the day. Okay, so
23:35
Speaker 1: that's the district she was a representative from there. She's
23:38
Speaker 1: a statewide known figure. She's a perfect example of a
23:43
Speaker 1: Democrat who's pretty far left but can look and sound
23:46
Speaker 1: quite normy mom type figure in Virginia because of all
23:53
Speaker 1: the doje the doge of it all. There's a lot
23:57
Speaker 1: of federal workers in Virginia. And I think this one
24:01
Speaker 1: with a less compelling candidate than Youngkin because Youngkin was
24:05
Speaker 1: like the perfect candidate for the perfect moment in a
24:08
Speaker 1: pretty purple state. I think it is tough for Sears
24:14
Speaker 1: to pull this off and their campaign and the Republican
24:17
Speaker 1: Party seem to think so as well. They're doing a
24:18
Speaker 1: shake up on her campaign this week for staffing because
24:20
Speaker 1: they're lagging in fundraising and polling. So we'll see where
24:24
Speaker 1: that one heads. Democrats could also overread that because Virginia
24:28
Speaker 1: might be weird because it's so full of federal workers.
24:31
Speaker 2: Virginia is weird. Yeah, yeah, that's true. I say this.
24:35
Speaker 2: I say this as a non swamp creature that lives
24:39
Speaker 2: in the big square states, like yeah, always weird.
24:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that will play a part in this election
24:46
Speaker 1: that will not be present in like house districts in
24:50
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six. Nonetheless, let me also note in North Carolina,
24:53
Speaker 1: the former governor Democrat Roy Cooper has decided to run
24:58
Speaker 1: for government Senate there, and that's to replace some Tom
25:04
Speaker 1: till Us. I know things. I've been on the road. Okay, guys, yes,
25:10
Speaker 1: he's gonna run. That was pretty much the DEM's dream candidate.
25:12
Speaker 1: So that will eliminate a lot of spending and problems
25:15
Speaker 1: for them. Not not doable for Republicans, but it makes
25:18
Speaker 1: it much more competitive.
25:20
Speaker 3: Okay.
25:21
Speaker 1: Those are our cautionary notes and inspirational notes. We will
25:25
Speaker 1: be back on normally with one more segment about FAFO parenting,
25:33
Speaker 1: and we are back. Kelly, I gotta do a parenting
25:35
Speaker 1: story with you. This one is in the Wall Street Journal,
25:39
Speaker 1: and I think you know this is like old news
25:41
Speaker 1: to us. Good goodbye gentle parenting, Hello fa FO parenting.
25:47
Speaker 1: So f around and find out parenting. It's his parents
25:50
Speaker 1: are ditching the softer approach to child rearing that has
25:53
Speaker 1: dominated the culture and taking a harder line. Okay, And
25:56
Speaker 1: it opens with this anecdote. I feel that I see
26:00
Speaker 1: things in our future. Carla Dylan tried lots of ways
26:02
Speaker 1: to discipline her rambunctious thirteen year old, including making him
26:05
Speaker 1: write the same contrite sentence a hundred times. But when
26:08
Speaker 1: he sprayed her with a water gun at a campground
26:10
Speaker 1: after she asked him not to, she saw only one option.
26:12
Speaker 1: She threw him in the pond, clothes and all. Some
26:14
Speaker 1: of the best lessons in life for the hard ones,
26:16
Speaker 1: she said. The Internet calls it fafo. It's a child
26:20
Speaker 1: rearing style style that elevates consequences over the gentle parenting
26:23
Speaker 1: methods that have helped shape gen Z. FAFO is based
26:28
Speaker 1: on the idea that parents can ask and warn, but
26:30
Speaker 1: if a child breaks the rules, mom and dad aren't
26:32
Speaker 1: standing in the way of repercussions. Won't bring your raincoat,
26:35
Speaker 1: walk home in the downpour, didn't feel like having lasagna
26:37
Speaker 1: for dinner, Survive until breakfast. Left your toy on the
26:39
Speaker 1: floor again, Go find it in the trash under the
26:42
Speaker 1: lasagna you didn't eat. Yes, please let you Like, I
26:48
Speaker 1: don't know, I don't know what to say, other than like,
26:50
Speaker 1: I'm like Bruce Willison die Hard, Like welcome to the party, pal,
26:53
Speaker 1: Like this is what we've been doing over here.
26:56
Speaker 2: This is how we've been parenting since we had kids.
27:00
Speaker 2: It was interesting because, out of the two of us
27:02
Speaker 2: you would have been I think likely the better of
27:07
Speaker 2: the two of us boy mom, and I would have
27:10
Speaker 2: predicted myself to be the girl mom. And yet you
27:13
Speaker 2: led with three girls.
27:14
Speaker 1: I got all those girls.
27:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I have two boys, and I will say
27:21
Speaker 2: fafo parenting is the only way to parent two boys.
27:25
Speaker 1: There's no.
27:28
Speaker 2: Unless you just concede property destruction. You have to yeah,
27:37
Speaker 2: stand up to them, yes, or you will get run over.
27:41
Speaker 1: I think it was do you know the essays who
27:43
Speaker 1: on Twitter goes by cartoons hate her? She was noting that, Like,
27:47
Speaker 1: you know, if you if you want to talk through
27:50
Speaker 1: each of your child's big feelings, that's fine if you
27:54
Speaker 1: have one child. Once you have more than one kid,
27:58
Speaker 1: the problem becomes that big feelings child is the one
28:03
Speaker 1: who gets attention. The attention is the thing that children want.
28:07
Speaker 1: So either you end up being unfair to your children
28:10
Speaker 1: who don't have big feelings, or you turn all of
28:14
Speaker 1: your children into big feelings children because what they're.
28:18
Speaker 2: Doing incentivized for them.
28:19
Speaker 1: You are incentivizing the big feelings that hold up the
28:23
Speaker 1: whole family, that keep you from doing things that keep
28:27
Speaker 1: you on your knees in front of a toddler begging
28:30
Speaker 1: with them to see reason when they are developmentally unable
28:33
Speaker 1: to see reason. I put an example of our FAFO
28:39
Speaker 1: parenting on X the other day, and I was like,
28:42
Speaker 1: I wonder if I'll get called mommy, dearist or something.
28:44
Speaker 1: But it's very simple, and this probably sounds like normal
28:49
Speaker 1: stuff to most of our listeners, because our listeners are
28:51
Speaker 1: pretty normal. I think gentle parenting can have some upsides,
28:55
Speaker 1: Like I think there's things that you can do with
28:56
Speaker 1: your kids that do help them connect and calm down
29:00
Speaker 1: instead of just saying stop having this angry feeling. Right,
29:04
Speaker 1: I get that, but with stuff like this, like our
29:08
Speaker 1: kids know that we will not come to bring them
29:10
Speaker 1: their lunches at school, and they don't have a cafeteria
29:14
Speaker 1: where they go to school, so they have to take
29:16
Speaker 1: their lunches if they don't remember them. What was happening
29:21
Speaker 1: was that kindly teachers gentle tea shirts were giving them
29:24
Speaker 1: like a piece of pizza or like something delicious, or
29:28
Speaker 1: we were being called to the school, and so we said, okay,
29:31
Speaker 1: we're not going to do that anymore. You have emergency
29:33
Speaker 1: beef jerky in your backpack that doesn't go bad.
29:37
Speaker 2: It will be a great band name by the way,
29:39
Speaker 2: emergency jerky, emergency beef jerkey. Yeah, the concert.
29:45
Speaker 1: When you forget your lunch, you don't tell anyone. Yeah,
29:48
Speaker 1: you eat the jerky. Yeah, and then if you don't
29:51
Speaker 1: love the jerky, which we know you don't, it will
29:53
Speaker 1: incentivize you to remember your lunch, and as a result,
29:57
Speaker 1: they don't forget their lunch is very often.
29:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's how we do it. I have a new
30:03
Speaker 2: policy that any legos that end up in the dryer
30:06
Speaker 2: become mine.
30:07
Speaker 1: Oh nice.
30:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, so now we're incentivizing get their legos out of
30:11
Speaker 2: their pockets because I just have a bucket full of legos.
30:15
Speaker 2: I did realize that I should not have bought a
30:19
Speaker 2: nice dryer until my kids are out of the house,
30:22
Speaker 2: because I just basically have a multi thousand dollars rock
30:26
Speaker 2: tumbler that's my entire dryer at this point. It's the
30:30
Speaker 2: stupidest thing that I've ever spent, like depent money on,
30:35
Speaker 2: and but like it is. I there are there are
30:41
Speaker 2: many things I like about gentle parenting and talking through feeling.
30:46
Speaker 2: I try very hard to do all of that. But
30:49
Speaker 2: also we have the time space continuum is real, and
30:53
Speaker 2: we just have a school on time and we just
30:56
Speaker 2: have to accomplish things, and we need to be able
30:59
Speaker 2: to go to the grocery store and eating.
31:04
Speaker 1: And I think, as illustrated by our first segment, you
31:07
Speaker 1: and I do think about economics and talk about economics
31:11
Speaker 1: on the phone a lot, because what else what else
31:14
Speaker 1: the mom friends do? And so one of the things
31:17
Speaker 1: that I am focusing on as a parent is what
31:19
Speaker 1: is the incentive structure in my house? And so a
31:22
Speaker 1: friend the other day who has is just has one kid,
31:26
Speaker 1: and she was talking about how she was whining and
31:28
Speaker 1: she gave her this and that she's trying to figure
31:31
Speaker 1: out how to, like, you know, to short circuit that
31:35
Speaker 1: whine fest and the tantrum or whatever it is. And
31:38
Speaker 1: I said, okay, hear me out. Tell her you can
31:43
Speaker 1: have the thing when you are calm for three minutes. Yeah,
31:48
Speaker 1: And thus you have told the child calm is what
31:52
Speaker 1: gets the treat. Screaming is not what gets the treat.
31:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, don't mind, I won't cry. Just say I would
31:59
Speaker 2: like a muna please, right, or whatever it is.
32:03
Speaker 1: And that's what my children used to call those little pouches.
32:07
Speaker 1: That's what I was trying to think of.
32:09
Speaker 2: Mine. Mine still always go for the apple sauce pouches
32:13
Speaker 2: and yeah, so don't mind, don't cry to say I
32:16
Speaker 2: would like this, but you have.
32:17
Speaker 1: To switch the incentive structure or else they will read
32:20
Speaker 1: all day that screaming is what gets them what they want. Yes,
32:25
Speaker 1: and then you get yourself in trouble. Okay, we're going
32:28
Speaker 1: to close out, But I'm going to close out with this, Kelly,
32:30
Speaker 1: because I have one boy, and I have noticed that
32:33
Speaker 1: the number of head injuries is just like exponentially higher
32:35
Speaker 1: than the girls. He We have ah an ottoman in
32:41
Speaker 1: the middle of the room that's basically our coffee table,
32:43
Speaker 1: so it's padded. This is strategic. We have two toddlers.
32:46
Speaker 1: You know, they're going to be jumping all around, so
32:48
Speaker 1: it's just like an upholstered ottoman giant coffee table. He
32:52
Speaker 1: got a footstool and put it on top of the
32:55
Speaker 1: coffee table and then climbed up on top of it.
32:58
Speaker 1: And I was sitting there the whole time watching because
33:00
Speaker 1: he's my fourth kid, and I was like, Okay, you
33:03
Speaker 1: see how it goes. Perhaps the consequences will tell him
33:06
Speaker 1: something about the section. And he's standing up there and
33:09
Speaker 1: he's kind of like dancing a jig up on the
33:12
Speaker 1: footstool on top of the padded ottoman his balance, and
33:16
Speaker 1: then actually nothing bad happened to him on this occasion.
33:20
Speaker 1: But what he said to me was, Mom, look at me.
33:23
Speaker 1: I injcizing, I interizing. And I was like, you know what,
33:30
Speaker 1: that's incorrect, but it's extremely correct that that's what you're doing.
33:35
Speaker 1: It is so I will keep you posted on whether
33:38
Speaker 1: he injurizes.
33:39
Speaker 2: Him justizes himself. I will mine this week. I think
33:43
Speaker 2: I told you this already was we were my younger
33:47
Speaker 2: since filled all over all of his clothes, and he said, Mom,
33:52
Speaker 2: I got it all over my clothes, every single clothe
33:56
Speaker 2: and it reminded me. It reminded me of how many
34:00
Speaker 2: stuff the English languages. I got it on every single cloe.
34:04
Speaker 1: I was like, oh no, we're gonna stop labbing at that.
34:10
Speaker 2: Just see his little face too, Mom, it got on
34:14
Speaker 2: all my clothes. Every single blow there sizing in your cloth,
34:21
Speaker 2: my cloe. He is often only wearing one cloe.
34:26
Speaker 1: Okay, oh my god, everybody, keep all your cloe on.
34:31
Speaker 1: Oh thanks for joining us on normally normally airs Tuesdays
34:34
Speaker 1: and Thursdays, and you can subscribe anywhere you get your podcast.
34:36
Speaker 1: Get in touch with us at normally thepod at gmail
34:38
Speaker 1: dot com. Thanks for listening, and when things get weird,
34:41
Speaker 1: act normally